Bundesliga Saturday: Frankfurt Relegated, ‘Gladbach To Playoff, Wolfsburg Survive

The second halves of today’s fixtures exploded into action and fates were sealed. Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Mönchengladbach, and Wolfsburg battled until the bitter end.

Borussia Mönchengladbach went into the halftime break with a 1-0 lead over Hamburg after a great free kick goal by Juan Arango. Hamburg would continue to push for an equalizer and then subbed on Ruud van Nistelrooy for Ze Roberto. Both men were in the Hamburg shirt for the final time. Van Nistelrooy would immediately cause problems. He would see his shot saved by Marc-André ter Stegen but Änis Ben-Hatira was right there to tap in the rebound. The match would end with in a 1-1 draw. ‘Gladbach knew they were guaranteed at least the relegation playoff place, but a loss by Wolfsburg against Hoffenheim would guarantee their safety in the Bundesliga for another season.

Today is the final matchday in the 2010-2011 German Bundesliga season. The title is wrapped up, the European positions are wrapped up, but we still have that little detail called “relegation” with which to deal.

There will be a massive celebration today in Dortmund as this season’s champions will lift the “salad bowl”. Tomorrow they will have an open-top bus ride through the city of Dortmund to celebrate their championship where they expect to share the championship with a couple hundred thousand people.